<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<!-- This file documents the BFD library.

Copyright (C) 1991-2016 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or
any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
Invariant Sections being "GNU General Public License" and "Funding
Free Software", the Front-Cover texts being (a) (see below), and with
the Back-Cover Texts being (b) (see below).  A copy of the license is
included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

(a) The FSF's Front-Cover Text is:

A GNU Manual

(b) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is:

You have freedom to copy and modify this GNU Manual, like GNU
     software.  Copies published by the Free Software Foundation raise
     funds for GNU development. -->
<!-- Created by GNU Texinfo 5.2, http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/ -->
<head>
<title>Untitled Document: Symbols</title>

<meta name="description" content="Untitled Document: Symbols">
<meta name="keywords" content="Untitled Document: Symbols">
<meta name="resource-type" content="document">
<meta name="distribution" content="global">
<meta name="Generator" content="makeinfo">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<link href="index.html#Top" rel="start" title="Top">
<link href="BFD-Index.html#BFD-Index" rel="index" title="BFD Index">
<link href="index.html#SEC_Contents" rel="contents" title="Table of Contents">
<link href="BFD-front-end.html#BFD-front-end" rel="up" title="BFD front end">
<link href="Reading-Symbols.html#Reading-Symbols" rel="next" title="Reading Symbols">
<link href="section-prototypes.html#section-prototypes" rel="prev" title="section prototypes">
<style type="text/css">
<!--
a.summary-letter {text-decoration: none}
blockquote.smallquotation {font-size: smaller}
div.display {margin-left: 3.2em}
div.example {margin-left: 3.2em}
div.indentedblock {margin-left: 3.2em}
div.lisp {margin-left: 3.2em}
div.smalldisplay {margin-left: 3.2em}
div.smallexample {margin-left: 3.2em}
div.smallindentedblock {margin-left: 3.2em; font-size: smaller}
div.smalllisp {margin-left: 3.2em}
kbd {font-style:oblique}
pre.display {font-family: inherit}
pre.format {font-family: inherit}
pre.menu-comment {font-family: serif}
pre.menu-preformatted {font-family: serif}
pre.smalldisplay {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller}
pre.smallexample {font-size: smaller}
pre.smallformat {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller}
pre.smalllisp {font-size: smaller}
span.nocodebreak {white-space:nowrap}
span.nolinebreak {white-space:nowrap}
span.roman {font-family:serif; font-weight:normal}
span.sansserif {font-family:sans-serif; font-weight:normal}
ul.no-bullet {list-style: none}
-->
</style>


</head>

<body lang="en" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" vlink="#800080" alink="#FF0000">
<a name="Symbols"></a>
<div class="header">
<p>
Next: <a href="Archives.html#Archives" accesskey="n" rel="next">Archives</a>, Previous: <a href="Sections.html#Sections" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Sections</a>, Up: <a href="BFD-front-end.html#BFD-front-end" accesskey="u" rel="up">BFD front end</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="BFD-Index.html#BFD-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
</div>
<hr>
<a name="Symbols-1"></a>
<h3 class="section">2.7 Symbols</h3>
<p>BFD tries to maintain as much symbol information as it can when
it moves information from file to file. BFD passes information
to applications though the <code>asymbol</code> structure. When the
application requests the symbol table, BFD reads the table in
the native form and translates parts of it into the internal
format. To maintain more than the information passed to
applications, some targets keep some information &ldquo;behind the
scenes&rdquo; in a structure only the particular back end knows
about. For example, the coff back end keeps the original
symbol table structure as well as the canonical structure when
a BFD is read in. On output, the coff back end can reconstruct
the output symbol table so that no information is lost, even
information unique to coff which BFD doesn&rsquo;t know or
understand. If a coff symbol table were read, but were written
through an a.out back end, all the coff specific information
would be lost. The symbol table of a BFD
is not necessarily read in until a canonicalize request is
made. Then the BFD back end fills in a table provided by the
application with pointers to the canonical information.  To
output symbols, the application provides BFD with a table of
pointers to pointers to <code>asymbol</code>s. This allows applications
like the linker to output a symbol as it was read, since the &ldquo;behind
the scenes&rdquo; information will be still available.
</p><table class="menu" border="0" cellspacing="0">
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&bull; <a href="Reading-Symbols.html#Reading-Symbols" accesskey="1">Reading Symbols</a>:</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&bull; <a href="Writing-Symbols.html#Writing-Symbols" accesskey="2">Writing Symbols</a>:</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&bull; <a href="Mini-Symbols.html#Mini-Symbols" accesskey="3">Mini Symbols</a>:</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&bull; <a href="typedef-asymbol.html#typedef-asymbol" accesskey="4">typedef asymbol</a>:</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top">&bull; <a href="symbol-handling-functions.html#symbol-handling-functions" accesskey="5">symbol handling functions</a>:</td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td align="left" valign="top">
</td></tr>
</table>

<hr>
<div class="header">
<p>
Next: <a href="Archives.html#Archives" accesskey="n" rel="next">Archives</a>, Previous: <a href="Sections.html#Sections" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Sections</a>, Up: <a href="BFD-front-end.html#BFD-front-end" accesskey="u" rel="up">BFD front end</a> &nbsp; [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="BFD-Index.html#BFD-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
</div>



</body>
</html>
